It has become common for mobile applications, such as, for example, mobile gaming applications, mobile service applications, and mobile social networking applications, to seek access to a user's contact list. A mobile application may seek to access a user's contact list in order to send download invites to the user's contacts in order to increase downloads of the mobile application. A mobile application may also use the user's contact list to attempt to determine which of the user's contacts have already downloaded the mobile application to establish engagement opportunities between the user and the contact through the mobile application. For example, if a user and their contact both have the same mobile game installed, the mobile game may attempt to connect them through the mobile application so that they may play the game together. While these may be useful functions that enhance the usefulness of the mobile application, they may also present privacy issues for contacts who do not want their information shared with unauthorized mobile applications.
Contact information stored in a mobile device may typically include a contact's name, phone number, email address, work address, home address, birthday, work place, photo, and other such information. Many people may not want to share this information with unknown third parties, however, as this information may be contained in shareable format within the device of another person, traditionally they may have to rely on the decisions of that person as to whether or not their private information is shared with various mobile applications or other entities. Furthermore, in many cases, even if the owner of the contact list is sensitive to the privacy concerns of a particular contact, many mobile applications request access to the entire contact list and may not allow for selection control of which contacts' information is shared and which is not. Even if a contact does not mind having their information shared with a mobile application, the user may nonetheless not want to receive unsolicited contact from a mobile application.
A separate problem can arise if, by virtue of having access to a user's contact list, a mobile application attempts to import a contact's contact information and is denied. In this case, the contact may have a series of previously missed attempts to connect with friends through various mobile applications. But, if the contact later changes their mind and wishes to engage with the mobile application, those past attempts to connect from friends will be lost. For example, a first user may have a mobile application game on their smart phone and the mobile application game may attempt to engage a second user by, for example, inviting the second user to download the mobile application game and connect with the first user. The second user may deny the request to download the mobile application game and connect with the first user, but if the second user decides to download the mobile application game at a later date, the second user will not be automatically connected with the first user as they would have been if they had originally accepted the invite to download the mobile application game and connect with the first user. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a system to allow a user to exercise control over the sharing of their contact information by another. It is further desirable to provide a system that may allow a user to share their contact list with a mobile application without worrying about whether the mobile application may attempt to initiate unwanted contact with the contacts.